New robot ants work like real insects to build and dismantle on their own

New robot ants work like real insects to build and dismantle on their own

It is based on “exbodied intelligence,” where coordination arises from interacting with the environment rather than complex internal programming. Researchers at Harvard have developed a fleet of robotic ants that mimic the self-organizing behavior of social insects to build and dismantle structures without blueprints or central leadership. Dubbed “RAnts”, these robotic ants have been designed by researchers from the John A. Paulson School of Eng…

Harvard engineers built ant-like robots that work together without central control

Ants do not need a foreman to raise a city. Working with little more than local cues, they excavate tunnels, pile up soil, and shape nests that can regulate airflow and temperature. That kind of collective competence has long fascinated scientists, partly because no single ant appears to understand the whole project. The intelligence seems to sit somewhere between the insects and the place they are changing. Now a team at Harvard has built a rob…